Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
Each was a reaction to the fall of Japan's short-lived East Asia
military empire. Each involved partial or complete resistance to
economic affiliation with the capitalist world. Each had an ingredient,
though these differed in stress and direction, of local Asian
nationalism. Except for Indonesia, each eventually became a part of the
world-wide front between Communism and anti-Communism. These wars
deserve consideration one at a time for their PsyWar content.
[Illustration: _Figure 72: Intimidation Pattern._ A Korean-language
leaflet maximizes the threat to enemy ground personnel of U. S. air
operations. The enemy dug in.]
=The Special Case of China.= None of the wars mentioned above was as
bloody or as tragic as the Chinese civil war between Communists and
Nationalists which ended with a Red victory in 1949. The China situation
is too complicated to be summed up in a single paragraph. The political,
economic, and propaganda components on each side of that war are as yet
not completely assessed.
For instance, one of the major factors in the defeat of the Nationalists
consisted of the withdrawal of the Japanese managers and technicians
from China as well as of those Japanese troops who had been maintaining
a degree of law and order in Manchuria and North China. This withdrawal
was not only sought by such "progressives" in the State Department as
John Stewart Service and Alger Hiss; it was also enthusiastically
endorsed by conservatives such as General Wedemeyer, who shipped the
Japanese out and General MacArthur, who received them. No American,
right-wing or left-wing, seriously proposed replacing the Japanese with
United States or United Nations personnel until the Nationalists had
enough trainees to manage a modern, capitalist China. By withdrawing the
Japanese the Nationalists and the Allies destroyed the political and
economic system under which the Nationalists proposed to operate and
were then astonished when the Nationalists met defeat.
In the China policy situation the contribution of Communist covert
propaganda within the United States in preventing aid to Chiang in the
crucial years of 1947, 1948 and 1949 should not be overlooked; neither
should it be overestimated nor considered the sole determinant of events
which took place within China.[50]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account